IronPigs fall to Buffalo again, 4-1

April 22, 2013|By Jeff Schuler, Of The Morning Call

Eight of the nine hitters in Buffalo’s lineup Sunday have played in the major leagues, with an average age of just under 30 years old.

And that doesn’t include the Bisons’ starting pitcher, 42-year-old Miguel Batista, who has appeared in 658 big league games, owns more than 100 major league wins, and signed his first pro contract before nine current IronPigs were even born.

In contrast, Dave Brundage’s Lehigh Valley lineup averaged just over 25 years old and featured just three players with major league experience. Plus, his starter, B.J. Rosenberg, was making just his ninth Triple-A start and 10th above Double-A.

So far this weekend, in a match-up between one of the International League’s most experienced squads and one of its youngest, the older guys are showing the young whippersnappers a thing or two.

Held in check by Rosenberg for five innings, the Bisons scored four times in the sixth inning while Batista baffled the IronPigs for six innings in a 4-1 Buffalo win before the season’s largest crowd — 9,032 — at Coca-Cola Park.

It was Buffalo’s third win over the IronPigs (7-9) in 24 hours, the seventh straight overall for the team with the best record (11-4) in the International League.

“They have a veteran ballclub, and I think it’s a good test for us,” Brundage said.

With a depleted bullpen, Brundage disparately needed innings from Rosenberg (0-1), and after a rocky beginning (he threw 40 pitches in the first two innings) the right-hander settled down to sail through the next three innings on 37 pitches.

But in the sixth, Buffalo used five hits and a walk to break open the game. Andy Laroche, a five-year major league veteran with almost 1,200 at-bats, singled home reigning IL MVP Mauro Gomez with the game’s first run. Lance Zawadzki later added a two-run single before Ryan Goins, the only Bison in the lineup without a big league at-bat, capped the inning with an RBI single off reliever Cesar Jimenez.

“Obviously they’re a very good lineup, a very veteran team,” Rosenberg said. “I tried switching up how I was approaching the guys, trying to keep them off balance. Those are definitely some seasoned hitters, and it’s good to see their approach. But I think mostly I just started missing over the plate a little bit.”

“He still ran some deeper counts at times than what we’d like for him, but he almost got us through six and that was kind of the goal to begin with,” Brundage said.

Batista, making his 899th professional appearance on the 21st anniversary of his major league debut against the Phillies (current general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. was his first strikeout victim), allowed one hit — a first-inning infield single by Cesar Hernandez — and an unearned run in six innings.

“I was getting a chuckle out of it, because one time I looked out there and Batista was facing a guy half his age in Tommy Joseph,” Brundage said of his 21-year-old catcher.

The IronPigs finished with two hits — Cody Asche had a two-out single in the ninth to help bring the tying run to the plate before Neil Wagner struck out Josh Fields — and have just 15 hits in the three games, 11 of them singles.

Over the last three days the IronPigs have faced Dave Bush (221 games and 56 wins in the big league), Claudio Vargas (217, 48) and Batista (658, 102).

“We swung the bats well in Pawtucket, and then we come back here and we’re facing a very veteran ballclub that’s showing us exactly why they’re still in the game,” Brundage said. “It’s a situation where hopefully we get to absorb and understand what they’re trying to do and how they’re pitching us. They’re not just giving in; they’re not just throwing 3-1 fastballs down the middle. There were times we worked ourselves into good counts and we ended up getting ourselves out. But those are good lessons to be learned, seeing what the veterans do. If you’re going to have success, you need to understand what that guy’s trying to do to you as well as what your game plan is.”

Batista, who is with his 14th major league organization, retired 15 straight before walking Tyson Gillies with one out in the sixth. Gillies later sped all the way from first to score when Hernandez’s routine two-out grounder to second got by Zawadzki for an error and rolled into shallow right field.

“Not a lot of guys can score on that play from first base, and Gillies is one of them,” Brundage said. “Our guys are playing hard, and that’s one thing we can control.”